Space Elite Force II Reviews

Controller recognition in this game absolutely fails. The first time I ran the game, I was playing on my X-input arcade stick, but the game wouldn't let me select any upgrades between levels. I then rebooted the game and played with my 360 controller, but when I got past menu navigation and got into the first stage, the controller stopped working--had to use the keyboard instead. The game is literally unplayable at this point. Besides the controller problem, the game seems very similar to the first one--perhaps, a little too similar. If you want more of the first game, then give it a shot; if you dislike the first game, then forget about it.

Playing the first game made me think the dev was just inexperienced. This sequel makes me wonder if its a cynical almost-scam. The game runs without glitches and you can't claim that there are not 4 upgrade branches, but it seems almost intentional that only 1 branch is even remotely viable. Add in the obvious laziness that you can't choose to use a keyboard if a controller is plugged in or even turn off the vibration, and it seems like he was phoning it in. The gameplay is OK. But you can do way better than just OK even in free games. Don't buy the pixelated shmup bundle, Stellar Interface is the only worthy one.

I'm really lukewarm about this game, and its prequel, Space Elite Force 1. I thought the first game was solid for 1 or 2 playthroughs, but was fundamentally a bit uninspired and lacked replay value. This sequel takes the slightly bland feeling up a couple notches, and noticeably has more moments of very little happening, and uncreative and borderline recycling of boss firing patterns where you barely have to tilt your joystick while waiting to whittle down a giant health bar. The upgrade tree, like in the first game, also still has a bunch of paths that are pretty much useless too, so any individual run leaves you with few interesting choices to make. This game is by no means a lazy cash grab, at all, but it really just feels lacking. I had to quit playing after I became apathetic, and died due to just playing sloppily, and now I have no desire to ever launch it again.

Awesome challenge and fun upgrades. Music is great, mechanics are standard. Progression is a blast! Packs a few nice surprises.

Had a lot of fun with this one...it's familiar territory once again but that's a good thing. Graphics are nicely done, a cool rock/electronic soundtrack, lots of good upgrades and achievements, leaderboards for all modes, co-op, extra modes like boss rush and arcade kept me coming back for more. I liked the smaller enclosed levels too (SO glad you don't take damage if you hit a wall here too). There's a few things I'd like to see in future games in the series...more upgrades, larger/longer campaign, more fun achievements, levels where the whole thing is a boss, (like level 3 from R-type), trading cards, more varied bosses, this game has some enclosed levels which were fun and I'd like to see more of those too. This series is severely underrated...if you like shmups and progression, buy this game...it's a lot of fun!

"This game is the price of a Fancy Cup Of Coffee!" ..Mega improvement over the First Space Elite!,these Games are again so cheap,they are practically free.They need your support by purchasing it,and that will lead to an even better Space Elite 3 :P Happy days! A Jets & Guns wannabee it is but thats not a bad thing now is it! :)

I had to refund the game as I couldn't play it with my XBOX360 controller. I could navigate the menus but as soon as the game started nothing worked.

Eh... this one is really on the border between recommendation and not recommending it. It's an okay enough game at that price. However, it is a blatant copy of Steredenn, the enemies and boss ships are almost verbatim copied, alot of the game mechanics are copied, and in those cases where it is not a copy, it doesn't really work out all too well. Also, it is just an updated version of the first game, not really a second game. And for that, it seems not really finished or polished. On top a few bugs. Meh. But kinda okay for the price.

Solid, clean, and with an incredible variety of enemy shooting patterns. This is a good game, crafter with love and care, well balanced and very pleasant to play. I can't understand why games like this one don't have 5 times the number of the steam reviews they have. Well done devs, big big thumb up! With this one it's 3 out of 3 good games I try from of the Shooting Ships bundle, i am impressed.

I bought this game based on the positive reviews, but now I feel like they weren't being honest about this game. Just look at the playtime of the top reviews, all under 4 hours, most of them at under 2 hours. The game is short and has very little replayability. I finished the campaign in under 2 hours with multiple deaths, so it is even shorter than 2 hours if you are good at dodging bullets. The endless mode is just the campaign but you only get to upgrade your ship once at the start. The boss rush mode is as expected (just bosses). This game has some really nice art and music. The UI is well done too (easy to read when the screen is full of bullets/sfx). The enemies are interesting, as well as their attacks/patterns. The bosses have some cool patterns too. As a top-down shooter, it works and is enjoyable. BUT the game has some big issues: 1. As far as I can tell, you can't rebind any key (keyboard or controller). The keyboard has 2 ways to play (either wasd or arrow keys for movement, with the other hand controlling the fire/specials/whatever). I played with wasd and while the controls were fine, they weren't ideal. There is a button for fine tuning your movement for tight dodges, but it is bound to left shift (not even right shift) and has to be held down to use - so I never used it because it was so clunky do to so. 2. The upgrades are extremely limiting and the game feels like it was designed with the max upgrade of each item in mind (ie. everything feels underpowered until you max upgrade it). This becomes a bigger issue in the late campaign as the first tier abilities have a lot of trouble killing anything. 3. Only 1 ship to play. Another issue with replayability. 4. There are only 3 special weapons and only one is useful. One gives you a big purple laser beam (you can see it on the animation on the store page) that lasts a short amount of time but does good damage. One gives you a large bomb that clears the screen of bullets and kills things. And one that gives you a shield that protects you from all damage, allows you to ram into bullets/ships to damage/destroy them and lasts longer than the other two abilities. I'll leave you to figure out which one is most useful. But for real - only 3 abilities to choose from? 5. There are some unique/fun pick-ups that drop from a specific enemy, but they don't last long enough or are too situational (thanks to them having a timer and not staying on the screen until you need them). For example, you can drop a healing item, but if you are at full health (because you are good at dodging bullets), then it is useless and you can't save it until later when you take damage as it will 'scroll' off the side of the screen. Or a bonus that doubles the currency you pick-up, which has a very short timer (about 1.5 waves when upgraded) - it is super situational since you cannot control when you use/active it, and it is only useful when there is a ton of currency on the screen. These two pick-ups could easily be changed, for example, the health could give you overhealing, and the currency bonus could apply to x amount of currency picked up (ie. double received for first 20 currency picked up). 6. Homing [weapons] AI is stupid. There are certain enemies in the game that the dev never intended for you to kill ("obstacles"), but the homing weapons will still target them, even if killable targets are on the screen. 7. Achievements are laughable. You get an achievement for unlocking each upgrade in the game. For each boss killed. For each pickup dropped by enemies. If a game cannot create meaningful achievements - then does that mean the game lacks anything worth achieving? IMO, this game should have ~30 achievements tops (kill each boss; kill each boss on elite difficulty, reach x/y/z waves in endless, complete boss rush, maybe a few 'challenging' ones like complete the campaign without dying or complete a boss without taking damage). If the Devs read this and you decide to update this game (versus just working on the next one), here is a list of things for me to change this review to recommended: bindable keys; more replayability (ie. different ship types; ways to customize the campaign or endless mode); more weapon types or variety; more ways to upgrade a weapon (ie. side grades) or your ship (ie. movement speed); more special items; fix homing ai; longer lasting pick-up items.